This thing is from me.
This thing is from me
I. Some events are specially from God. God is in events which are produced by the sin and the stupidity of men. This breaking up of the kingdom of Solomon into two parts was the result of Solomon’s sin and Rehoboam’s folly; yet God was in it. God had nothing to do with the sin or the folly, but in some way, which we can never explain, God was in it alL The most notable instance of this truth is the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; that was the greatest of human crimes, yet it was foreordained and predetermined of the Most High, to whom there can be no such thing as crime, nor any sort of compact with sire How, then, was “this thing” from God?
1. First, it was so as a matter of prophecy.
2. And, secondly, “this thing” was from God as a matter of punishment. God setteth evil against evil that He may destroy evil, and He uses that which cometh of human folly that He may manifest His own wisdom.
II. When events are seen to be from the Lord, they are not to be fought against. Rehoboam had summoned his soldiers to go to war against the house of Israel; but, inasmuch as it was from God that the ten tribes had revolted from him, he must not march into the territories of Israel, nor even shoot an arrow against them.
1. The thing that is happening to you is of the Lord, therefore resist it not, for it would be wicked to do so. If it be the Lord’s will, so may it be.
2. But, next, it is also vain, for what can we do against the will of God?
3. Next, it would be mischievous, and would be sure to bring a greater evil upon us if we did resist.
III. This general principle has many special applications. I believe it often happens that events are most distinctly from the Lord, and when it is so, our right and proper way is to yield to them.
1. A case in which this principle applies is when severe afflictions arise.
2. Sometimes, also, we are troubled by certain disquieting plans proposed by our friends or our children.
3. A very pleasant phase of this same truth is when some singular mercy comes. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Tracing events back to the final cause
The scribe is more properly said to write than the pen, and he that maketh and keepeth the clock is more properly said to make it go and strike than the wheels and poises that hang upon it, and every workman to effect his works rather than the tools which he useth as his instruments. So the Lord, who is the chief agent and mover in all actions, may more fitly be said to bring to pass all things which are done in the earth than any subordinate causes, as meat to nourish, clothes to keep us warm, the sun to lighten us, friends to provide for us, etc., seeing that they are but His instruments. (T. Downame.)
God’s overrule of national events
Those who care to watch the hand of God in history may soon discern this truth in this incident. The attempts of France to acquire the sovereignty of the British Isles, and the corresponding efforts of the earlier English kings to become what their coins so long styled them, “King of France,” have all been marvellously foiled by the Almighty Ruler of nations to the true welfare of both. Sir A. Alison has described the scene on the French coast in 1804, when the first Napoleon surveyed the flotilla which was to carry an invading army across the Channel, and saw them broken and dispersed by Him who rules the waves. God will not suffer the might or the cunning of man to wrest the sceptre from His hands.
God in history
The Old Testament “philosophy of history” regards all events as at once the results of human forces and of God’s purposes, and finds no contradiction in the double aspect. Rehoboam was no less a criminal fool, Jeroboam no less a crafty traitor, because they were both working out God’s purpose. The possible co-existence of freedom of action, necessarily involving responsibility, and God’s sovereignty, is inexplicable, and as certain as it is inexplicable. Metaphysicians and metaphysical theologians may fumble at, or cut, the knot till doomsday, but it will not be untied or denied. Rehoboam ran the ship on the rocks, but God willed that it should be wrecked. But another mystery emerges, for the Divine resolve to shatter the kingdom was due to the thwarting of the Divine purpose in establishing it. Sovereign as that Divine will is, man has power to oppose it and to block its course, and lead to changes of its direction, as we sometimes hear of an army of caterpillars stopping a train. God’s methods vary, but His purposes remain the same. The ship tacks as the wind shifts, but it’s always steering for the one port. The unifying of the tribes into a kingdom, and the disruption of the kingdom, were equally in the Divine plan, and were both, in a real sense, also the direct results of men’s sin and opposition to God. Hence it follows that “the history of the world is the judgment of the world.” The “natural” consequences of national acts are the punishments or rewards of these acts. Solomon’s tyranny, Rehoboam’s folly, the rebels’ indifference to the unity of the nation worked out the catastrophe, which was both a political effect, produced by political causes, and a Divine judgment, and was the latter just because it was the former. For nations, and for individuals, God “makes whips to scourge” them of their “vices,” and in the mighty maze of human acts, has so ordered the issues of things that “every transgression and disobedience receives its just recompense of reward.” So the “undevout” historian “is mad.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)